Falling on deaf ears: I-95 neighbors plead for noise relief

PORTSMOUTH — Bill St. Laurent has lived in his Colonial Drive home in Pannaway Manor for 48 years.

Jeff McMenemy

PORTSMOUTH — Bill St. Laurent has lived in his Colonial Drive home in Pannaway Manor for 48 years.

He's always been able to hear and see nearby Interstate 95 from his front yard, but the noise and exhaust fumes from the highway dramatically increased when it was expanded twice in the 1970s from four lanes to eight, and in some spots to 12 lanes.

Neighborhood residents thought state officials would put up sound barriers when they expanded the highway and brought the interstate closer to their homes, but that never happened.

"I've tried for years. I've been fighting for years to do something," St. Laurent said this week as he stood near a small fence that separates the neighborhood from the highway. "I've had the state, I've had the DOT (Department of Transportation) down here, and we stood here and I said 'Can you hear me?' and I'm just talking normal and they said 'No, we understand your problem.'"

The noise, which has increased as the traffic on I-95 has grown, is a "constant, constant problem," which St. Laurent said impacts their quality of life and lowers their home values.

The former city councilor said anytime you go outside or open your windows in the nice weather, you hear the cars and trucks rushing by.

"You learn at times to yell. ... When we had parties outside we had a yelling party," St. Laurent said of living with the noise. "We've learned to talk over it."

As he spoke, the sound from the highway rose and fell, but it always remained, at times so loud he had to almost yell to be heard.

Priscilla Paisley has lived in the Pannaway Manor neighborhood since she was born in 1946. She smiled when she remembered a time when I-95 was just four lanes "and you could walk across it."

"We used to walk down to Howard Johnson's and get an ice cream," Paisley said.

State rejections

But like many neighborhood residents, she has grown discouraged after fighting for decades only to get in return a constant refrain of rejections from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

Residents believe the state should have erected the sound barriers when they widened I-95.

"They said it was our fault because we didn't tell them and we just assumed they were going to do it," Paisley said. "We don't read minds here. We just assume they're creating the problem, they're going to take care of it."

Tom O'Leary's parents moved into their Pannaway Manor house in the late 1940s, "and it has been in the family ever since," he said when he appeared this week at the City Council meeting.

A hardworking neighborhood

O'Leary described the neighborhood as being "made up of a diverse, hardworking, resilient group of people."

"Over the years, there's been very little crime and it's a terrific place for a child to grow up or parents to raise a family," O'Leary said. "It's a great neighborhood."

But in all the time he's lived in Pannaway Manor, the N.H. DOT "hasn't shown one instance of concern ...; for our health and quality of life with the excessive noise and exhaust pollution of Route 95."

Despite high toll rates along the 16-mile stretch of I-95 in New Hampshire, the state always says it doesn't have any money, O'Leary said.

Aaron Garganta is the latest president of the Sherburne Civic Association to take up the cause.

Garganta said two different projects were conducted in the 1970s on I-95 that ended up widening the road from four lanes to as many as 12 in some spots.

The expansion projects cut what he describes as a "swath" through Portsmouth and brought the highway to within 20 yards of some homes.

Generations fighting for relief

He is the third generation of his family to live in the neighborhood.

"From my house I can hear it. It's a constant noise that doesn't go away," Garganta said. "For people who have lived in this neighborhood for a long time and remember the (Pease) Air Base when it was fully operational, I think the majority of them today would say that the highway is a larger nuisance than the airport was," Garganta said. "I'm sure there's probably some people who would take exception to that ...; but the highway never goes away. It's constant."

"When we're out in our yards, when people want to open the windows to their homes, this is what they have to listen to," Garganta said.

The only time residents don't hear the noise from the highway is during a major snowstorm.

"Then you hear the plows," he said.

Like other neighborhood residents, Garganta argues that the state should have put up sound barriers when it first widened I-95.

He said there were two different federal laws in place at the time that required noise mitigation, but state officials failed the neighborhood.

"This small neighborhood group has gone to the state levels for hearings to say we want you to build a sound barrier," Garganta says.

Ultimately, state DOT rules will only let state money be used for sound barriers when there's a project going on.

He said I-95 impacts the lives of more than just Pannaway Manor residents, and he pointed to Rockingham Avenue residents, too.

"It's an issue that should be mitigated for everybody," Garganta said. "It's a quality of life issue and it's a property value issue."

He recalled about a year ago when his father took his daughter for a walk in the neighborhood and when they got close to the highway, "she put her hands to her ears" to block the noise.

State offers no help

Bill Boynton, spokesman for the N.H. DOT, declined to comment this week on why the sound barriers weren't installed when the highway was expanded in the 1970s.

He said the N.H. DOT won't pay for sound barriers unless they're part of an ongoing highway expansion and the noise from the highway meets certain limits.

"These are not cheap," Boynton said about sound barriers. "We don't have enough money to address all the transportation needs in the state."

John Evans, the air and noise program manager for the N.H. DOT, said the state is building "somewhere between 12 and 13" noise barriers along the stretch of Interstate 93 from Salem to Manchester that's being widened.

A 'legitimate issue'

William Hinkle, press secretary for Gov. Maggie Hassan, referred questions on the matter to state Director of Project Development Bill Cass.

"I'm sure that the noise warrants mitigation," Cass said. "We don't have a program where we mitigate and do standalone construction of sound walls unless there's an ongoing project."

Asked if the state or federal government dropped the ball when I-95 was widened in the 1970s, Cass said, "I don't think anybody really dropped the ball. I don't think the level of scrutiny and environmental documentation that we have today was as detailed as in the early 70s when I-95 was built."

He said the only option residents have now is to try to get on the state's 10-year plan for projects, something residents tried but failed to do this winter.

St. Laurent said the project has been on the 10-year plan before, but nothing ever got done.

Cass, who has been involved in the 10-year plan since 2007, said he doesn't remember Pannaway Manor being on the list before.

For those who moved to the neighborhood after the highway expanded, Cass said they should have expected to deal with the noise.

Asked about what he'd say to the neighborhood residents who lived in Pannaway Manor before the I-95 expansion, Cass said, "I don't know what I'd say."

Help from the city?

Meanwhile, City Councilors Jack Thorsen and Stefany Shaheen have been working with Garganta to try to get something initiated from the city of Portsmouth.

Thorsen told the City Council on Monday night that "the citizens of Portsmouth have done everything they can possibly do to solve this problem."

He asked City Manager John Bohenko to conduct a study to determine where noise barriers are needed along I-95 in the city.

He echoed Garganta's belief that the city should push for sound barriers wherever they're needed.

He also noted that "our little segment of 1-95 has more traffic density than anywhere in New Hampshire."

Bohenko plans to send a letter to Hassan and the congressional delegation to see what legislation was in place at the time I-95 was expanded, and to see if they can offer any help.

But for St. Laurent, who's lived in the neighborhood for almost half a century, decades of getting no help from the state has left him discouraged.

"I don't think anything is going to get done," St. Laurent said Thursday over the sound of cars and trucks roaring by.

It's particularly frustrating for Pannaway residents, after a sound barrier was put up on the high-rise bridge going over the Piscataqua River on I-95.

"Excuse me, they've got four lanes, we've got 12," St. Laurent said. "Then all of a sudden the Heights (neighborhood) complains a little bit and they get one, I mean what's wrong with us, what are we some kind of Swiss cheese over here that nobody cares about us?"

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